


I Do Like to Be By the Seaside

by Roccolinde



Series: The Seasons Will Change Us New [1]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: (and friends to lovers happens later), (because it's about as romantic as sand in your swimsuit), F/M, JB Week 2019, Modern AU, No Twincest, PITAs to friends, Slow Burn, featuring Ser No Ignition In This Fic, it's the minigolf AU I won't shut up about, nothing says romance like a trip to the English seaside, well smuldering burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-11-08 08:11:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20832212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roccolinde/pseuds/Roccolinde
Summary: Nanny Brienne Tarth joins her employer for a week at the English seaside, complete with minigolf, fish and chips, the ghost of Lady Stoneheart, and one very aggravating Jaime Lannister.For JB Week 2019





	1. Monday

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so, to save you all from reading an insane amount of rambling:
> 
> (1) This fic is the first in a series that is meant to be a slow burn story featuring demisexualJaime. They are NOT together at the end of this fic and I sort of went around and around about whether to tag it J/B. It's pre-relationship J/B becoming friends, but it felt disingenius to tag it platonic only when it's all part of their romantic journey. So, like, be aware and read accordingly. Or not. They'll shag eventually, but not in this fic.  
(2) I had all sorts of JB Week plans that sort of got scuppered for time reasons, and this was meant as the "Vacation"/"Summer" day, but... time. So, instead, I'm posting a chapter a day of this story, corresponding with a day in Jaime and Brienne's holidays. Or so the theory goes.  
(3) The whole English seaside holidays is... a thing. It's really hard to explain without experiencing it. Just know that the idea of Cersei Lannister getting stuck on one of these, even in posh housing, is fucking hilarious to me. Title of the fic comes from an old [Music Hall Tune](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Do_Like_To_be_Beside_the_Seaside) that you cannot escape.  
(4) Bethanyactually is an amazing human being who is betaing every chapter she can manage despite the fact that the turnaround time is insane, and I am grateful for her.

Brienne should have known that the promised seaside holiday was going to be… _this_. It had seemed perfectly fine when Catelyn had suggested it, pointing out that Robb had plans to stay in Edinburgh for the week and there was a bedroom spare. She’d nannied for the Starks for the last ten years, ever since Catelyn had been pregnant with Bran, and she’d travelled plenty of places with them in that time. She’d seen half of Europe while wrangling five wild children, and parts of Africa and Asia as well. She was experienced. She was educated. She was damn good at her job. 

But she had, until now, avoided the annual seaside trip that had been a summer tradition since Ned Stark and Robert Baratheon were in university together. Of course, back then they might have been satisfied with a caravan with walls so thin you had to worry a bad fall would send you into the next room. Nowadays they rented million-pound homes in an exclusive gated complex, which Brienne couldn’t help but feel was contrary to the whole experience. And, in the interest of honesty, Brienne was well aware that five children running different directions in a foreign country when none of them spoke the language was actually _less_ intimidating than having to spend an entire week with the Lannister-Baratheons. 

Oh, the kids were alright. Well, the younger two, at least. Myrcella was of age with Sansa and the girls were nigh inseparable when they had a chance, and Tommen slipped neatly between Arya and Bran. Both kids were sweet and quick to laugh when the Starks and Baratheons met a few times a year, usually for birthdays and holidays, and Brienne was fond enough of them. The eldest, Joffrey, was far less pleasant, and would be on his way to an ASBO if he wasn’t too rich. Thankfully, he rarely seemed to be at events since Catelyn had caught him playing with a candle and a napkin from the table during a visit; the antique wood still bore a scorch mark from the incident. But the real problem came in the form of Ned’s best friend—Brienne could not fathom what the two men had in common, because Ned was a titled lord who did his duty to the ancestral home and yet managed to be practical and humble and kind; and Robert Baratheon was a drunken lout who had once leered at Brienne and found out she was quicker than she looked when he’d tried to paw at her—and the best friend’s wife, a self-important twit who was utterly convinced of her own genius. 

Cursing the fact that her father was off visiting his latest girlfriend’s adult son on _their_ usual week to visit, leaving Brienne at loose ends and too quick to accept Catelyn’s offer to bring her to this odd little town in the south of England, Brienne hefted up her bag from the back of the rented people carrier and approached the house. It was huge, sleek, and modern—a conspicuous sort of wealth that demanded attention.

“That would be Cersei,” Catelyn said from behind her, and for a moment Brienne thought she’d said it aloud. Then Catelyn laughed. “It’s hard not to see. Ned would probably choose a tent, and Robert’s… well, Cersei is the pampered one. Don’t worry, Brienne, she’ll spend most of the week deep in her cups. I think she might dislike us more than we dislike her.”

Brienne thought of the pinched expression and occasional ruddiness that makeup could not quite hide when she’d had the misfortune of dealing with Cersei, and concluded Catelyn was probably right.

“But the children?”

“If you think that woman spares them a single thought outside photo ops, you’re naive,” Catelyn said, her soft and proper accent at odds with her scathing words. It was a contradiction Brienne was deeply familiar with: the sweet English lady had found her Scottish soul when she’d married Ned. “They’re cared for, though.”

Oh, yes, Brienne had heard of the long line of increasingly young and increasingly pretty blonde nannies that had clearly been hired more for their willingness to sleep with the lady of the house than their childcare skills. Men _and _women, by all accounts, which made it the sort of salacious gossip, exchanged between posh nannies at the school pickup, that exhausted Brienne.

Well, the less she had to do with the family, the happier she would be. 

***

Brienne’s room was large and white, a vaguely nautical theme giving occasional splashes of pale grey and blue. An enormous bed sat against one wall, and a faux driftwood wardrobe on the other, with a long daybed in white iron beside it. The whole thing felt more like a magazine spread than anywhere she’d like to live, and was a far cry from the welcoming Winterfell Hall. The large window overlooked the bay though, and when she cracked it open she could smell the sea air, so it did have one advantage over the Starks’ home. 

From below there was a shrieking laugh, and Brienne craned her neck just in time to see two streaks with long hair—one blonde and one red—running around the corner of the house next door. She smiled; Sansa had been so sombre of late at home, determined to prove that she was no longer a child but a young woman who could conduct herself with grace, and Brienne worried it would crush the girl’s gentle spirit. A week with a dear friend ought to help. 

Moving away from the window, Brienne unpacked her bags and then sent a text to her father to say that they’d arrived safely. He might have been caught up in the latest of his many affairs—a depressing contrast to Brienne’s own lacklustre love life—but he could still fret for England when it came to his only living child. Her phone buzzed a moment later. 

_K Bri have fun Sal says hi_

A dutiful daughter would have immediately texted a warm greeting in return, and Brienne wrote the perfectly polite reply of _Will do, dad. Tell Sal I can’t wait to meet her_, then quickly deleted it before sending. Chances were Sal would be nothing more than a memory by the time she got back to the island at Midwinter. 

Casting one final glance over the bedroom, Brienne headed downstairs. 

Catelyn was in the kitchen, laptop opened with a pizza-delivery tracker displayed, her mobile held to her ear by her shoulder as she lectured Robb on exactly when and how much to feed the family dogs, and Rickon swinging from her leg. 

“Help,” she mouthed when she saw Brienne, a small smile belying any actual irritation. 

Brienne quickly swept Rickon away, telling him to make sure Shaggydog was safe in his room and ready for bed, and then turned back to Catelyn.

“How can I help?”

“Can you go grab the girls? They’re next door. I know you’re not on duty, but...” she gestured to the phone. “No, Robb, you can’t feed them _lemon drizzle cake_, why did we think you were old enough to stay home?”

“I’ll tell them pizza’s almost here,” Brienne said, trying not to laugh. The Starks had never been particularly good at treating her like the hired help, and when she wasn’t on official nanny duties she was more like another member of the chaotic family. They had a habit of taking in lost souls, and on any given day Winterfell was likely to have at least three unrelated kids at the dinner table. This was a _quiet_ chaos, by their standards.

The Lannister-Baratheons’ house was identical to the Starks’, but even hours after arrival, even standing outside, it was impossible not to sense the difference between the two homes. The Starks had opened windows and curtains and Bran had left his scooter by the front door, whereas this place still looked magazine perfect. Brienne knocked at the door, but there was no answer, the house still oddly _hollow_. 

A familiar shouting came from the back garden, and Brienne decided to go around rather than continue to knock. The gate was open, and when Brienne entered she was unsurprised to see the younger Stark daughter wielding a foam sword with utter determination, spinning and striking with a precision that was terrifying. Brienne didn’t recognise her opponent, an attractive blonde man who was throwing himself into the fight with enthusiasm. The latest nanny, Brienne could only presume. 

Arya landed a particularly vicious hit, and Brienne decided it was time to call it before she drew blood. “Arya! Dinner! Go wash up.”

The girl stepped back and dropped her sword, looking almost guilty until she saw it was only Brienne. 

“Did you see me?” she asked, grinning.

“Lethal as ever, Arya,” Brienne answered, and the man laughed.

Brienne looked at him, surprised to realise that he was older than she had first presumed. Perhaps Cersei was finally aiming for more age-appropriate conquests, not that it made the whole thing less repulsive. He had bright green eyes, though, more suitable to a romance novel protagonist than a living, breathing human being, so maybe that was the appeal. The Lannister-Baratheon nannies Brienne had crossed paths with often bore a strong resemblance to their employer. 

Driven by the promise of pizza, Arya darted past Brienne and out of the garden with little more than a “See you later” thrown over her shoulder.

“Myrcella and Sansa just went inside,” said the man, rubbing his forearm where Arya’s last strike had hit him and walking towards her. “They’ll be back in a minute.”

“I’m sorry, about that,” Brienne said, gesturing to his arm. “Arya’s… not one to hold back.”

“Yes, I’ve gotten that impression.”

“I’m Brienne,” she offered.

“Jaime,” the man replied, looking her over. _Men_. “Aren’t you a little old to be a nanny?”

Well, that was a bit rich, because she was clearly younger than he was. Probably not by _much_, and he seemed to have been blessed with the sort of extremely good genetics that meant hints of aging just rendered him even more ridiculously handsome, but it was still an absolutely idiotic thing to say.

“I’ve been with the Starks for years,” she said.

“Not having children of your own?”

What the _hells_ was up with this man? She was just about to give a scathing retort when she heard two sets of thundering footsteps, and then Myrcella’s voice.

“Brie!” she exclaimed, wrapping her arms around Brienne in an excited hug. “Sansa said you had come, didn’t she, Uncle Jaime?”

_Uncle_? And just like that, it all fell into place—the startlingly green eyes she thought were just a new level of narcissism from Cersei, _you’re a little old to be a nanny_, the apparent assholery, all of it. 

“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Jaime, extending his hand. “I didn’t introduce myself properly a moment ago. Jaime Lannister. I’m Cersei’s younger brother.”

“Two minutes younger, Uncle Jaime,” Myrcella laughed. “You know mother hates when you say that.” 

He was her brother. Not the nanny. Gods, had she really—

“Pizza’s here, Sansa,” Brienne said, hoping the burning in her cheeks wasn’t as obvious as she knew it would be. “Thank you, Mr Lannister, for…”

Well, there wasn’t anything in particular to thank him for, a situation that just got worse when he flashed her a smile that could probably make grown women _weep_. 

“Call me Jaime.” 

She most certainly would _not_. Giving a small nod of her head, she ushered Sansa out of the garden. They were on the strip of grass between the two houses when the girl stopped and looked around furtively.

“Brie, could you… maybe not mention Arya was fighting with Mr Lannister? Mum doesn’t like us being alone with him.” 

The hairs at the nape of Brienne’s neck raised.

Sansa clearly read her discomfort, because she hurriedly added, “Gods, no, no, not like _that_. He’d _never_. I think he’s gay anyway, Myrc says he never dates. No, he was in the car with Aunt Lysa when…” the girl took a deep breath and pushed on. “But he’s really nice and I wouldn’t be able to see Myrc half so much if we had to rely on another adult being there.”

“Sansa, I can’t lie to your mother. I won’t.”

“Not a _lie_, Brie. Just… a selective truth? He’s way more responsible than any of the other adults there, _and_ he’s nicer. I promise.”

Nice was not the word that came to mind, in Brienne’s opinion, but Sansa was looking at her beseechingly, her blue eyes wide. Brienne sighed.

“I won’t lie,” she said grudgingly, “but I won’t rat you out yet.”

***

The kids were in bed—or in their bedrooms, at least, because Brienne was well aware that the only one likely to be asleep was Rickon—when Brienne slipped out the double glass doors to join Catelyn in the garden for a glass of wine. Catelyn glanced towards the house, as if to make sure no children had followed her, then pulled out a cigarette.

“I love them,” she said, flicking the lighter, “but every time I travel with them, I wonder why.”

“Life experience, broadening horizons, et cetera,” Brienne replied by rote. “It’s good for their emotional development.”

Catelyn laughed. “That it is.”

Brienne poured herself a glass and took the seat next to Catelyn, tipping her head back to examine the night sky. There was still more light pollution here than back home, but the stars were clearer than they were in Edinburgh at least. She breathed deeply, allowing the cool night air to fill her lungs.

“I met Jaime Lannister today,” she said, hoping she didn’t sound like she was fishing for information, even though she definitely was. Sansa’s _he was in the car with Aunt Lysa_ had raised all sorts of questions. 

“I suspected you might have,” Catelyn replied. “Arya was shockingly compliant when she came in for dinner. I wish she wouldn’t, but you know what that girl is like.”

“They were having a foam sword fight, I don’t think the Seven themselves could have stopped her.”

Catelyn snorted. “Probably not. And that’s exactly the sort of ridiculous man-child behaviour I’d expect from him, too.”

“I play-fight with the kids all the time,” Brienne said. “Is that a problem?”

“No, no. _ You_ are a responsible adult. Jaime Lannister is a selfish, spoilt—” she took another drag of her cigarette, then angrily stubbed it out. “I had heard he and Cersei were on the outs again over some stupid thing or another. I had half a hope it meant he wouldn’t come this year. He’s just… I’m sure he is a great fun uncle, but I can’t trust him, not with the kids.”

Brienne nodded and waited for an explanation that didn’t come. “I’ll keep an eye on them,” she eventually said. 

“Brienne, this is your holiday! You really don’t need—”

“I know,” Brienne interjected. “But I really don’t mind.”

She really didn’t. She loved the kids, and would do everything in her power to look out for them. Up to and including getting through the week without punching Jaime Lannister, not-a-nanny, in the face.


	2. Tuesday

Tuesday morning dawned bleak and grey, and remained so hours later when Jaime was roused at a far-too-early-for-a-holiday time by Tommen bursting into his bedroom. 

“It’s going to rain, Uncle Jaime, I checked the weather report!” 

“Raining on our holiday?” Jaime asked in mock horror, dropping back against his pillows dramatically. “This has never happened to a Lannister since the Battle of Hastings!”

“You’re ridiculous,” Tommen said, giggling. “But rain means the cinema.”

“I’m not sure what’s showing...”

“Rain means the cinema,” the boy repeated. And really, who was Jaime to argue? Cersei wouldn’t deign to do something so plebeian, it got the kids out of the house and kept them entertained, and the worst Joff could do was throw popcorn at another member of the audience. And if they caught an early enough showing, chances were good there wouldn’t _be_ anyone else in the audience. 

“Fine, fine,” he grumbled. “I’ll meet you downstairs for breakfast in ten minutes.”

Tommen left, and Jaime got up and moved into the en suite, showering and shaving as quickly as possible lest he invoke the wrath of Tommen’s precise timekeeping. Not that it mattered, because he reached the kitchen to the smell of bacon and eggs, Myrcella at the hob, one very irate Tommen, and no sign of their parents. 

“You’re late,” the boy said, and looked pointedly at his wristwatch. “You said ten minutes and you were twelve.”

“Waylaid by grumpkins,” Jaime replied, moving towards the stove to take over the cooking. “I’ve got this, Myrcella. Can you find out what’s playing at the cinema?”

The answers to that question were dull, inappropriate, and the sequel to an appalling film about an increasingly irrelevant video game, and somehow the last one was the only viable option.

“I’m not going to that,” Joff said as he sauntered into the kitchen, stealing a slice of bacon from Myrcella’s plate. 

Jaime tried not to roll his eyes, well aware that Joffrey absolutely _would_ go, because regardless of his personal interest he couldn’t bear for his siblings to have something he didn’t. 

“Can we bring Sansa?” Myrcella asked. “We were going to go down to the caravan park and see if Jeyne’s here yet, but this is better.”

“You can ask,” Jaime hedged, unwilling to make promises only Catelyn Stark could keep. “Jeyne as well. My treat.”

“If she gets to bring friends,so do I,” pouted Joff, a new record in doing an about face. Jaime prided himself on feeling only a little smug. 

By the time breakfast was over, the list of invitees was in the double digits, all three of the kids eagerly texting everyone they knew in the area. Jaime could tell the moment Myrcella got a negative from Sansa, her face falling for just a moment before she redonned the pretty and compliant smile her mother demanded of her. And like hell was he going to have his niece suffer for his decades-old choices. Telling the kids to make sure they were ready to go when he got back, Jaime went next door. 

A window was opened as he reached the Starks’ place, and Catelyn’s voice drifted out of it.

“I said no, Sansa.”

“Mum, they’ve invited all of us. Even Rickon, and people _always _forget him. And besides, we’ll be stuck at home bugging you all morning if you don’t let us go. Didn’t you say you had work to do?”

“No, Sansa.”

“FINE!”

There was a lull that Jaime presumed meant Sansa had stormed out of the room, and then another voice.

“Catelyn, I really don’t mind going with them. After the incident at school, it will do Sansa good to—”

Curious but not willing to intrude on a private conversation, if only because he wouldn’t want anyone listening in on a recount of Myrcella’s troubles, Jaime hastily stepped back and headed towards the door. He waited a minute, then another, before knocking, and the door was eventually answered by the woman he’d seen briefly the night before. The nanny Myrcella and Tommen were always talking about after a visit. Brigit? Brianna? He’d honestly been too surprised by her eyes (and height—the woman was a giantess) to make proper note of her name, and the kids had always called her Bee. She was dressed appropriately for her nickname this morning, in a yellow and black striped jumper and dark capris, and Jaime immediately decided that calling her Honeybee would piss her off mightily. And what was life without a little entertainment? By all accounts she wasn’t the sort to back down from a fight. He flashed her a rakish grin.

“Mr Lannister,” she said with a sigh. “What can I do for you?”

“I want to talk to Catelyn. Could you get her for me, Honeybee?”

She crossed her arms and glared at him. Yes, she was definitely Catelyn’s creature.

“Is this about the movie? Because Sansa’s just stormed upstairs in tears, which feels like a slight overreaction, but it’s worked.”

Point for the nanny, then, because Jaime knew firsthand how difficult Catelyn Stark was to persuade once she’d set her mind on something, regardless of facts.

“Give us twenty minutes,” the nanny said, glancing at the sky. “The rain should hold off long enough for us to walk down, if you don’t mind.”

“Perfect,” Jaime replied. “I have been informed that we will be picking up stragglers all the way to town.”

She rolled her eyes. “Delightful.”

***

The cinema was small, with only four screens, and half of those with a tiny capacity. But as the rain Tommen had predicted was just beginning to fall as they reached its doors, not even Joffrey complained. Tickets and refreshments were purchased, and the kids—a total of eleven in the end, including all four Starks—were ushered en masse towards the correct screen. When Jaime was satisfied the children were all seated in ways that wouldn’t end in a bloodbath, he moved to the back row, flopped into the seat next to the Stark nanny, and cheerfully pulled a bag of Maltesers from his pocket.

“You aren’t supposed to bring food in,” she hissed, not even looking at him.

Jaime gestured to the small theatre they had managed to half fill, and the accompanying small fortune in popcorn and fizzy drinks.

“I’m not spending a fiver on Maltesers, Honeybee,” he said, popping one in his mouth. “I’m rich, not ridiculous.”

The woman didn’t reply, and Jaime tried to hide his irritation. He’d been hearing about the Stark nanny for years, but this uptight killjoy was nothing like the fearsome and loving force of nature he’d been led to imagine. Still, she was the only other adult around and the movie looked _terrible_; he would just have to be entertaining enough for the both of them. 

As the lights dimmed and adverts began to play on the screen—he was old enough to remember when the cinema showed trailers without 20 minutes of commercials beforehand—he heard the nanny give an exasperated huff.

“Give me one, then,” she said, her hand already reaching for the bag

Oh, he would.

Waiting until her hand was almost in the bag, he suddenly yanked it back and swatted her hand away from below. 

Her eyes narrowed.“It’s like that, is it?” she hissed, her hand already reaching again. 

Jaime was quick, but her arms were long and her movements hard to predict. They ducked and weaved and elbowed each other as he struggled to keep the bag from her. He was practically in the empty seat on his other side, arm extended high over his head, when he grinned.

“Come now, Honeybee, you can do better than that.”

She _lunged_, half her body colliding against his shoulder, as he moved the bag to his other hand and twisted just in time to keep it out of reach. A risky move, but effective; in the moment it took her to realise where it had gone, he’d gotten a firmer grip at the opening of the bag. It did not deter her long though, and a quick downward slash almost knocked it from his hand. 

The battle waged on and on, until Jaime had gone from increasingly amused to merely determined not to lose. The adverts had long transitioned into trailers by the time a man three seats ahead of them—the only other patron—turned to them with a scolding eye.

“Sorry,” Jaime whispered, hoping none of the kids had noticed their behaviour. He’d never live down losing. “My girlfriend here—”

She hit him, the back of her hand colliding with his solar plexus so neatly that he couldn’t breathe for a good thirty seconds. While he gaped wordlessly, she smiled at the man in apology and plucked the bag of Maltesers from Jaime’s hand.

“Sorry,” she said. “We’ll behave.”

The glare she sent him would have kept Jaime silent even if he could speak. Which he couldn’t, because the woman was a brute. And, to his credit, they were at least ten minutes into the movie before boredom set in and he leaned towards her ear. 

“Do you think the pig bears a resemblance to my dear brother-in-law?” he whispered. “I think it’s uncanny.”

“Watch the film. You could miss an important plot point.”

Her delivery was so dry that Jaime turned in his seat to look at her face, trying to determine whether she was serious. In the dim light cast by the screen it was impossible to tell, but he thought there might be the tiniest hint of amusement tugging at the corner of her lips.

***

The rain had abated by the time they left the cinema, and Jaime was absolutely certain that the Stark nanny was nowhere near as uptight as she seemed. Which was good, as it meant that he might actually get through this week with more than his niece and nephews as company. 

“Should we feed them?” he asked her, gesturing to the herd of children milling around. “I’m worried they might turn feral if we don’t.”

Her lips twitched. “As much fun as that sounds, I have a root canal scheduled for this afternoon.”

“A root… you know, Honeybee, I am beginning to think you have a sense of humour. The dour Starks haven’t beaten it out of you yet.”

The woman rolled her eyes. “We really can’t. I promised Catelyn I’d pop into the shop and head home, because we’ve got plans this afternoon. I can take Jeyne back with us though, if it would help?”

“Fine,” he said. “Abandon me to my fate. But if I manage to survive the rampaging horrors, I demand that all of you come minigolfing with us tomorrow.”

Bee cast an eye over her charges.

“For the kids?” she asked quietly, as if she understood.

“It’s not like I’m looking to spend time with you,” Jaime said, intending it as a joke and regretting it when she flinched. “Look, Myrcella’s got a million friends but none of them are close, and Tommen… Never tell her I said this, but Cat’s done a good job with her kids. And you, I guess. As their nanny. I’m… Yes, for the kids.”

“I’ll talk to Catelyn,” Bee said after a moment. “But don’t mention it until we know? I don’t want to upset Sansa if she says no. Thank you for the movie, Mr Lannister.” 

He couldn’t stop his grin.

“You thumped me for a handful of Maltesers, Honeybee, _surely_ you can bring yourself to call me Jaime?”

The woman blushed, a splotchy bright red.

“Fine. Thank you for the movie, _Jaime_,” she said, meeting his eyes in challenge even as the blush persisted. “Satisfied?”

Ahh, there was the nanny of legend.

“It’ll do,” he said. “For now.”

She just rolled her eyes and turned to gather up her charges.


	3. Wednesday

The fantasy-themed minigolf course was surprisingly large, sprawling back further than Brienne would have thought from the outside. They’d passed by it on the walk into town the day before, the front dominated by an enormous castle Brienne expected was made out of MDF and plaster, with a single tower climbing from the middle. The whole thing was painted a matte yellow-brown, chips of white suggesting it hadn’t seen a new coat in years, and there was some sort of fair maiden leaning from the tower, the mannequin weirdly proportioned and awkward. It was, in short, gaudy and poorly maintained, the epitome of the English seaside tradition.

They met the Lannister-Baratheons around the side, where the course could be accessed by one narrow bridge and a tiny hut that couldn’t fit all eight of them. Rickon had stayed home, because he’d woken the entire house that morning by trying to climb up the counter to reach something from a high shelf and crashed half a dozen plates onto the floor in the process, a story Arya recounted with great relish to those who hadn’t witnessed it. 

“My mother would be _furious_,” said Tommen, looking slightly appalled. 

“Nah, Mum made him stay home so he can go shopping for new ones with his pocket money, but she’ll probably buy him ice cream too.” Arya shrugged. “She saves furious for the big stuff.”

Brienne happened to glance towards Mr Lannister—Jaime, she corrected herself, because they were both adults on equal footing and calling him Mr Lannister was rather absurd—and caught a tiny expression of…wistfulness, perhaps? But it was gone before she could be certain, his green eyes fixing her with a rather more mischievous look.

“Teams of four, kids,” he said. “I’ll go in and pay—”

“We can pay,” Brienne objected.

“Nope. I invited you, I pay. Tommen will tell you those are the rules.”

The boy nodded his blonde head solemnly. “It’s rude not to,” he said. “And Uncle Jaime is not rude.”

As the kids discussed teams among themselves, Brienne found herself contemplating the conundrum of Jaime Lannister. Catelyn had not been particularly pleased by the invitation when Brienne had raised it, but Sansa had been in such a good mood at dinner that Catelyn had been loath to say no entirely. 

“As long as you’re with them,” she’d eventually conceded, then disappeared into her bedroom. Brienne had heard her on the phone later than night, talking in that gentle voice that usually meant her sister was on the other end of the line.

And the thing was…she trusted Catelyn, who was by no means a fretting mother, but she’d seen nothing _worrisome_ in Jaime herself. He was talkative and a little childish, yes, and he couldn’t seem to help his chronic foot in mouth comments; but he’d been _good_ with the kids the day before, in control but friendly, ensuring that everyone was comfortable and fed. And he hadn’t shut up, and, yes, some of his comments probably put him firmly into asshole territory by themselves, but for the most part he was funny and he didn’t… he didn’t go after the kids, or belittle _her_; there was no sharp barb of pleasure in him at exposing a weakness like she’d witnessed from his sister. Experience told her to be cautious, but instinct had her liking him more than she cared to admit.

A conclusion which was immediately undermined by him coming to the door of the hut and waving the group over with a putter—the last adult-sized putter available, as it turned out.

“Sorry, Honeybee,” he said with a shrug, and she’d just about understood the nickname when she’d worn that jumper the day before, but was utterly perplexed at why he persisted, “I paid.”

“I offered to pay!”

“Ahh, but you didn’t, did you? I’m sure the teen putters will do.”

The teen putters were a good inch shorter than the adult ones, and while she _was_ taller than Jaime, she wasn’t so much taller that she could justify siccing Arya on him in retaliation. Shaking her head, she grabbed the putter and approached the first hole. It had a fort-castle at the end of the green, and sitting before it there was a mannequin chained to a post. Brienne wasn’t sure which was more ridiculous—the complete lack of scale that meant the prisoner was about four times as tall as the castle’s portcullis, or the fact that the lanky hair that obscured his face was bright yellow and carved from the same wood as the rest of him.

“I think it’s forced perspective,” Jaime said, leaning close so the kids didn’t hear. 

“I was expecting dragons,” she whispered back.

“Probably not in the budget.”

Trying to remember that she was annoyed with him, she quickly ushered the children into some sort of putting order. When she glanced back at Jaime, he raised his putter and shook it at her. The utter _git_. She’d just have to beat him fair and square.

Unfortunately for Brienne, the universe was not on her side. Or it was, in that Jaime was no better than she was, but it turned out that a half dozen games of actual golf with her father as a teen and a general aptitude for sport had in no way prepared her for the hell that was miniature golfing. 

She overshot, repeatedly. Jaime managed to land two balls in the water feature that ran through the course on the first hole. She had a clear tap-into-the-cup moment and the damn ball circled _twice _before rolling away. He managed to wedge his ball in such a way it was impossible to hit properly, but _honour_ dictated that he try anyway. 

On and on it went through the first quarter of the course, which had a vague fantasy-forest theme—i.e., plaster toadstools painted a lurid red and gold, the occasional blue fairy with a broken wing, and three women hanging from a tree with a sign saying they’d lain with the enemy. She’d looked to Jaime at that point, who seemed as confused as she was, and they quickly hurried the kids along the path and onto the next hole. Jaime had had to double back to drag Joffrey away, which made Brienne rather leery of the new looks Sansa had taken to sending the boy. That girl fell in and out of crushes like they were in the sales. 

Hole seven was going to be trouble, she could tell the moment she saw it. The ball needed to be putted uphill into a cave, on top of which stood a suspiciously lifelike goat. The kids went first, all of them racking up perfectly respectable scores near par, and then turning to Brienne and Jaime with sheer _glee_ on their faces.

“I’m beginning to think they’re enjoying this,” he mock-whispered. “Vicious creatures.”

“Big brave man like you can’t be scared of some _kids_,” she replied. “Arya barely comes up to your elbow.”

“Nice try,” he countered. “You forget I’ve seen her with a sword.”

“Fair point. You can go first. You paid, after all.”

He did, managing to hit three balls _over_ the cave and losing them somewhere in the bushes before finally managing to sink a ball in only five strokes. 

“Beat that, Honeybee,” he grinned at her.

Wondering whether there was a penalty for hitting your opponent with their putter, Brienne lined up and took a shot.

***

Considering how badly Jaime was doing—his father would no doubt delight and despair in equal measure that his son and heir couldn’t even successfully manage golf aimed at _children_—he was having far more fun than he could have imagined. And yes, he and Bee being tied neck and neck for worst minigolfers ever was part of it, but mostly it was just… _fun_. Nobody was sniping, the ribbing was all in fun, and good shots were celebrated.

Which, of course, meant that Joffrey had to be an absolute shit and ruin it. Jaime wasn’t even entirely sure what started it—he was scrawling a _3_ for Arya’s score, one under par for the hole—when there was a shout and a scuffle and Joff’s voice screaming, “GROW UP, TOMMEN, YOU PISSY BABY!” and by the time he had turned around all hell had broken loose.

Tommen had crouched down, his breathing heavy enough Jaime could hear it at a distance, and Myrcella and the Stark kids had gone toe to toe with Joff. Myrcella was bright red, Bran was saying words he was absolutely certain Catelyn would _not_ be impressed to hear from her sprog, and Sansa was looking at Joff with sad horror. Arya came barreling back past Jaime to throw herself into the line, a scowl on her face that would curdle milk.

“Joff! That’s enough!” Jaime barked. “Another word and you’re out of the game.”

“Like I even wanted to play!” Joff shouted back, defiant as ever. But as Jaime stepped towards him, he flinched, and it was all too easy to remember the scared little kid he’d once been.

“Play your turn,” he said, flatly, and Joff sulkily moved to the tee.

Hoping that Tommen hadn’t shut down completely, Jaime turned back to his younger nephew. To his surprise, Bee had sat herself next to Tommen, her long limbs loosely folded as if to make herself seem smaller. She didn’t say anything at first, and when she saw Jaime watching she motioned him to keep the other children playing. Looking to Tommen and seeing no discomfort, he did as Bee suggested, biting back a smile when he heard the woman’s calm voice.

“Do you know,” she said, seemingly to the air, “I have a scar on my ankle that looks exactly like a cat? When you’re ready, I’d love to show you.”

And then she said nothing. Not through Sansa’s turn, or Myrcella’s, or Bran’s. When it was what would have been Tommen’s turn, he risked glancing back and found that Bee was sketching the features of a cat onto her ankle with a spare pen while Tommen watched from the corner of his eye. So he played instead, and by the time he was done Tommen was standing and ready to go.

“He’s…?” Bee asked as they moved to the next hole, and Jaime shrugged.

“He doesn’t have a diagnosis, if that’s what you’re asking. Cersei and Robert both think he just needs to grow up. It might be different if I still had custody, but—” he cut himself off. “You were good with him back there. A lot of people would have...”

Bee shrugged. “It’s what I went to school for,” she said. “Teacher training with a focus on SEN. Special Educational Needs.”

“I know what it means,” Jaime replied. He’d better, it was his damn job. “Why are you a nanny then?” 

“I qualified, but… budget cuts. And Catelyn offered me the nanny position while I kept looking, and I’ve just sort of stayed. The pay is good, the Starks are like a second family…it’s not what I’d imagined doing, but I wouldn’t change it.”

“They’re lucky to have you,” he said, not particularly surprised that the sentiment was more than a polite platitude. 

She looked at him with a sort of wary surprise in her eyes, as if expecting him to take it back. And he was, he would fully admit, a bit of an asshole, but he’d never do something like _that,_ and he’s almost offended she would think so. Even if she’s only known him a couple of days.

“They’re lucky to have you too,” she finally says, nodding to where Myrcella has set herself up as Tommen’s personal guard. 

“There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for those kids,” he admitted. It was a ridiculous confession to make to a near-stranger, but it wasn’t as if his family would ever say such things between them. “Even Joffrey, though in his case it might be getting him good care when he crosses a line.”

Her wary surprise turned to actual shock, and Jaime shrugged with false nonchalance. It wasn’t as if he should be airing his family’s entire sordid history, but given the utter betrayal in Sansa Stark’s eyes when Joff had set Tommen off, it is probably right to say _something_.

“He was a good kid, once, and I don’t…I don’t _know_ anything, but I’d keep an eye on Sansa. He’s been a little shit of late.”

“Aren’t all teenaged boys?” Bee countered. “Even Robb’s being an absolute idiot. He told a girl he would go to this disco, and then changed his mind because some other girl made goo-goo eyes at him. And _believe me_, he probably won’t remember doing it by next summer but she won’t forget it anytime soon. That shit _stings_.” 

_If you think that’s the worst it could be..._he thought, remembering Baelish, Lysa Tully’s screams, the sickening crunch of metal against brick and then the silence. But there was a look on Bee’s face as if she was all too aware that ditching one girl for another was only the tip of the iceberg when it came to cruelty, and he doubted either of them wanted to go there today.

Shaking off the memories, he gestured ahead to the next hole where the kids were already shooting. The obstacle was a giant bear, similar to the typical windmill hazard he’d actually only seen on American telly, with a paw sweeping back and forth across the small hole.

“Think you can mange?” he challenged, and whatever small tension he had read in her body bled away in an instant; he hadn’t even realised it was there until it was gone.

“Better than you,” she replied.

“Don’t know about that, I’m ahead of you by three.”

“I’m not sure I trust your scorekeeping.”

“You doubt my integrity?” he gasped in mock-affront. 

“Absolutely.”

“Wicked.”

When it was her turn, she putted the ball, possibly her best shot of the game. They watched it roll directly towards the bear…and get stuck beneath the swinging paw. 

“_Shit_,” she muttered, then automatically added, “You didn’t hear that.”

“My innocent ears heard nothing,” he said. “I’ll go grab the ball.”

“I can—”

“My hands are smaller and it looks like a tight fit,” he said, and oddly she _grimaced_ at the comment before redonning a face of indifference. 

It was a wonderful act of gallantry, except the bear was about as well maintained as the rest of the course and as he bent down and reached behind it, a rough edge scraped the _fuck_ out of the back as his hand; he just managed to knock the ball free before pulling his arm back.

The wound was not deep, but it was bloody and wide, having taken off several layers of skin, and hurt enough that tears actually pricked at his eyes.

“Jaime?” Bee said. “Oh gods, let me have a look at that.”

Before he realised what was happening, she was knelt beside him, her hands gentle as she cleared the wound with a bit of gauze. There was a first aid kit propped open beside her, and at Jaime’s confused glance she shrugged and smiled.

“Bran,” she whispered. “Brings it everywhere. It comes in handy surprisingly often. Here, put pressure on this while I...”

He did, the pain abating enough that he could actually take in his surroundings. The kids all looked concerned, except Joffrey, and Sansa had pulled a bottle of water from her own bag and handed it over.

“To clean it,” she explained. 

“Thank you, Sansa,” Bee said. 

In another moment she had rinsed his hand, satisfied herself it had stopped bleeding enough to bandage it, and did so with a swift competence while distracting him with inane chatter. Admittedly a technique that worked better with children than adults, but the sentiment was appreciated.

“There you are,” she said, putting the first aid kit away and standing, then offering Jaime a hand up. “You’ll want to be careful with it for a couple of hours, but it’s not serious.”

It wasn’t. Even the stinging had dulled down, so long as he didn’t flex his hand. He looked down plaintively, fixing a deliberate pout on his lips.

“Tragedy,” he said. “My career in mingolf is over. Cut down in my prime.”

“Oh yes, a great loss for the world of sport,” she said dryly.

“There’s nothing for it,” he said, lifting his putter and handing it over with a solemnity that was only slightly undermined by the stinging in his hand making him fumble it slightly. “You, Honeybee, must play with the good putter. For both of us. Bring us glory and honour.”

She rolled her eyes and took the putter, the tug at the corner of her lips he’d learnt to read as a smile. “I do not understand how people put up with you.” 

“A mystery for the ages,” he said magnanimously, and her lips tugged again. 

Her game improved marginally with the larger putter, which was to say she was still utterly terrible, just not _as_ terrible. By the time they reached the final hole—an entire medieval city in miniature—everyone was more invested in cheering her on than in their own scores. 

“Last chance for glory, make it one for the books,” he warned as she lined up, and the unamused glare she sent him made him laugh.

When she managed to sink the ball in four, which was par, a cheer erupted from the kids, and Jaime pulled out his phone. She was _beaming_, the smile broader than he had imagined possible from her stoic face. 

“Come here,” he said, grabbing her elbow and pulling her closer.

“What are you doing?” 

“Picture.”

“Oh, no.”

“Oh, yes. This is our victory, our _moment_, Honeybee. It must be captured for all eternity.”

“Why do you call me that?”

Not quite the response he was expecting, but he shrugged. “The kids call you ‘Bee’ and you were wearing that jumper, so…”

She started laughing, a loud braying that brought tears to her eyes. “_**Brie!**_ My name is Brienne, the kids call me _Brie_,” she sputtered between howls of laughter. “You’re an absolute idiot, you know that?”

He was embarrassed for all of two seconds before he remembered he was Jaime Fucking Lannister and like hell was he going to admit to it.

“Come here then, Honey_Brie_,” he said, tugging her close enough he could throw an arm around her shoulders. “Smile for the camera.”

She was still laughing when he took the photo. 


	4. Thursday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooo, this is the equivalent of the bath scene and after having written the whole thing in one day I'm seriously doubting it and also THEY ARE NIGHT SWIMMING AND I DO NO DESCRIPTION OF THE LOVELY MOON AND STARS AND THE GIANT CARGO BOAT INEVITABLY LIGHTING UP THE DISTANCE and _honestly_. But I'm posting it before bed so it all counts.

Brienne spent most of Thursday far away from any thoughts of Jaime Lannister and the growing suspicion that he actually liked her. Not, like, _fancied her_ liked her, thank the Seven—she was done with that complication even with men who didn’t look like _that_. More like being befriended by an overeager puppy, all enthusiasm and tail wagging and occasionally peeing on your shoes with things like ‘_I once had custody of my sister’s kids but clearly this is not a conversation to have in the middle of a minigolf course so let’s just move on.’_. It wasn’t that she disliked him, he was just…a lot. And that was before whatever-the-hells the situation with Catelyn was. So when Catelyn asked for her help setting up for the annual barbeque and bonfire, and she’d seen Jaime driving away with the Lannister-Baratheon kids and enough beach gear for a dozen people, she’d been only too eager to jump at the task.

Several hours later, having prepared more platters than she thought humanly possible, she wondered why they hadn’t hired a caterer like Cersei had. 

“I’m not sure it’s possible to eat this much food,” she said, and Catelyn laughed.

“Ned and Robert have been coming here for over twenty years. There will be anywhere between 50 and 75 people here, many of them with teenagers. If we don’t overestimate the food, we’ll find someone chewing the walls. But I’m going to...” she nodded her head towards the door leading to the garden, the sign that Catelyn was in need of a sneaky ciggy. “Watch out for the kids?”

“If they come anywhere near, I’ll rope them into arranging the mini quiche,” Brienne promised, well aware it would send them running.

“I don’t know what I’d do without you,” Catelyn said, slipping outside. 

Several hours after _that_, the guests began to arrive, first in a dribble, but then a monsoon of people who saw each other once a year and intended to make the best of it. There was music and laughter, competitive lawn games in one corner that were no doubt aided by an absurd amount of drink, and the smell from the barbeque. Brienne had set herself up by the firepit; most of the kids were old enough not to need direct supervision, but it was best not to risk it when fire was involved. And as it kept her from the more awkward socialisation, all the better.

“Wine? Beer? Lurid-coloured cocktail?”

Brienne jumped in her seat and turned to see Jaime at her shoulder, a lazy grin on his face. He’d donned dark jeans and a blue jumper rolled to his forearms in deference to the cooler evening air, and accidentally managed to hit Brienne’s Ideal Look On Men in the process. _Fuck_. She’d been aware he was attractive—it was an observable, neutral fact like the blue sky or the fact that Brienne was tall—but she’d never actually _noticed_ it before.

“Beer?”

“Try to sound a little less uncertain, HoneyBrie,” he said, but loped over to the table laden with drink options—and it was most definitely a lope, and she most definitely did not stare at his ass while he did so—and came back with two beers, sprawling into the chair beside her and handing one over.

“How was the beach?” she asked, realising she hadn’t actually made it to the water yet.

“Wet.”

Brienne rolled her eyes and opened her beer. 

“No, it was good,” he said. “Not as good as going alone, because I was constantly counting heads, and I had to be careful with the hand, but it was a good day.”

“How _is _your mortal wound, by the way?”

“Much better for your tender ministrations,” he said, prompting her to roll her eyes again. The man was a bloody nuisance, even if a pretty one. 

They fell into an easy conversation between sips of beer, and when Jaime’s was done he stood.

“Do you want another?”

“I’m good, thanks,” Brienne said, lifting her still half-full bottle. 

She expected him to move on, mingle with other guests, but a moment later he was back in his seat.

“You _do _know other people here,” she remarked. “Sansa told me you come every year.”

“Ahh, but do _you_? Ned’s manning the barbeque and Catelyn is running around, and as much as I enjoy the Starklings I’m not certain they are sufficient company for a whole evening.”

“So you’ve come to save me from boredom,” she said, torn between amusement and irritation. “My knight in shining armour.”

He scoffed. “Well, that and the fact that half the guests are friends of my _sister_, which means they’re insufferable, and the other half are…” he trailed off, and she was able to fill in the blanks, or enough of them. _Lysa_.

“Well, I appreciate it,” she said, amusement winning out. And possibly a bit of pity at his kicked-puppy expression.

As the evening wore on, some of the guests began to drift towards the firepit. It was mostly kids looking to roast marshmallows—Jaime produced a bag of American ones from _somewhere_, swearing they were the best for roasting purposes—but a few adults as well. It was cozy and fun, and by the time the dusk had begun to properly fade into night, Brienne was enjoying the pleasant hum of good food and good company. 

She wondered, later, whether she should have noticed Joffrey sooner than she did, if she should have paid more attention to Jaime’s warning the day before, but she hadn’t. Her first warning was the sound of flesh on flesh and a shrieked “SHUT UP!” and she spun to see Sansa a few feet away, stumbling back with a hand pressed to her cheek and tears in her eyes. Joffrey raised his hand again and Brienne lunged to stop him, but was beaten to it by Jaime, who had grabbed his nephew’s wrist with an iron grip.

“Inside,” he growled at Joffrey, his easygoing nature absolutely nowhere in evidence in his narrowed eyes. They softened only slightly when he looked over his shoulder. “You alright, Sansa?” 

The girl nodded, chin lifted high to show she was not defeated.

“Just surprised, that’s all,” she said, as if everyone present couldn’t see the handprint on her cheek. 

“Have Brienne look at it anyway,” he said, and dragged his nephew into the Lannister-Baratheon house.

Brienne made sure Joffrey was out of sight before pulling Sansa into a tight hug, the girl taking shuddering breaths against her until she was ready to rejoin the festivities. 

***

It was near midnight when the final guests left the gathering, the last bits of food packed up to take with them. Brienne had looked for Jaime after the incident, but if he’d made it back to the party she hadn’t seen him. 

Cersei had disappeared shortly afterwards and also hadn’t made a reappearance, and it was a good thing, too. When Catelyn had heard what had happened to her daughter, she was ready to personally eviscerate anyone remotely responsible. Sansa, the shock having worn off, was just as quick to defend those who were innocent, telling her mother repeatedly how Myrcella had brought her ice and Tommen had sat beside her and offered her marshmallows, and how quickly Mr Lannister had intervened. Catelyn had finally agreed to leave the confrontation until the morning, no doubt because Robert was at least two and a half sheets to the wind.

But when silence had descended upon the Stark home, Brienne had still been restless. Finally resigning herself to a lack of sleep and hearing the water from her opened window, she changed into a swimming costume and slipped down the hill towards the private beach attached to the complex. It wasn’t as nice as the silt beaches in town or elsewhere along the coast, but it would do.

She found a pile of neatly folded clothes on the sand, midway to the water, and frowned as she recognised the jumper Jaime had worn earlier that night. Then she spotted him, far enough from shore that he was little more than a shape in the water. Dropping her towel beside the pile, she strode into the water and quickly cut through the gentle waves towards him. 

“Evening,” she called when she got nearer, and he changed direction to join her. “You’re out late.”

“Yeah, I…. Needed to burn some energy.”

“Ahh,” she said. “I wanted to thank you. For Sansa. I didn’t manage to catch you afterwards.”

“No, I didn’t make it back. I’m sorry, is she alright?”

“She’ll be fine. Catelyn will be over at your place by six tomorrow morning though, ready to raise all seven hells.”

“Good,” he said. “Joff’s not going to be a problem for the rest of the week, but it’s about time someone said something.” He sighed and pushed his wet hair away from his face. “I should have put my foot down sooner, but I didn’t know, and… it was easier.” 

“Easier?”

He jerked his head towards the shore. “Let’s go in a bit, I’d rather have ground beneath my feet for this one.”

She obliged, swimming towards shallower waters. With their heights it was still quite a ways out, and soon enough there was sand between her toes. She turned to face him, folding her arms and then allowing them to drop to her side. He stopped a few feet away, near enough to talk quietly but still with enough distance. 

“So…” she started, and he rolled his shoulders as if bracing himself. 

“So, easier. It’s—right, so, from the beginning. I’m telling you this because I trust you won’t tell anyone else. It’s not really a secret, but it’s going to hurt the kids more than anything if it gets spread around. When the kids were younger, Robert was travelling for work a lot and Cersei was…”

“In rehab?” she supplied. 

She remembered the rumours, shortly after she started working for the Starks. It hadn’t meant anything to her then, just idle gossip she didn’t care to hear. Jaime grimaced, the schoolyard entertainment far more personal for him. 

“Yes. Joff was already at boarding school, even though he was only little. I can’t believe they still _do_ boarding schools for kids that age. Robert insisted he go, even though he doesn’t much care whether the other two do. Myrcella’s a girl and Tommen’s too soft. But I had custody of the younger two, for about six months. And then Cersei left rehab and she _hated_ it. Hated that the kids were happy with anyone but her, and ever since she’s… any perceived slight and she’ll cut you off from the kids until you come grovelling back. It’s not worth fighting her, most of the time.”

“I take it you did tonight?”

Jaime nodded. “Joff’s his parents’ son. I’ve had a feeling for awhile, but when he hit Sansa… the spite was Cersei and the quickfire temper was Robert, and I realised I should have fought her over this years ago, but I didn’t know how bad it was. Mostly because I didn’t ask. He’s _fifteen_, for fuck’s sake!”

His jaw clenched at that, and he tilted his head back to look at the sky. Brienne fought the urge to reach out and touch him, leech away some of the blame in his words. For a moment, neither of them spoke, and then he took a deep breath. 

“I’ve told her Joff gets some help,” he continued. “Starting tonight, or I will bring her perfect life crashing down around her head. She’s so used to me being the compliant brother, she forgets that I learnt the same lessons from our father that she did. So she agreed, but she’s also kicked me out of the house, sans phone or wallet—”

“What the _fuck_?”

She didn’t intend to say it, had meant to give him the space to vent his frustrations and leave it at that because it wasn’t as if there was anything else _to_ do, but the words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. 

He looked at her and gave a rueful smile. “It’s not the first time she’s done something like this. Chances are I won’t see the kids for awhile, not properly. Thankfully they are old enough to know I’m not abandoning them, but…” he shrugged. “I’ll sort something out, I just… I thought I’d go for a swim first.”

“Right,” she said. That she could do. “Do you want company?”

*** 

“Look, if your sister kicked you out, you can come crash in my room for the night. There’s a daybed, it should be long enough.”

Jaime paused and looked to where Brienne was floating in the water. They’d been swimming in near silence since their conversation about Cersei, a comfortable sort of companionship with occasional flares of competitiveness when they would race to some marker in the water and back. 

“Oh no, HoneyBrie,” he said, because as sincere as the offer was, it wasn’t one he could accept. “You might not have noticed, but I’m not exactly on Cat’s Christmas card list.”

“You were looking out for Sansa tonight. She won’t mind.”

“Believe me: there are no circumstances where she’d want me in her house.”

Brienne rolled over and swam, reaching him in a few easy strokes. She stopped in front of him, far enough away so as to be _proper_, but closer than he particularly wanted. 

“Lysa?” she asked, a challenge on her face. 

“Lysa,” he agreed. “I’m not going to—I don’t know what you’ve been told, but there’s good reason for her contempt.”

“Catelyn doesn’t talk about it. I know her sister was in a car crash and was left with a serious brain injury that means she lives in an assisted living facility in the Midlands. Sansa told me you were in the car that night. Other than that…”

“I’m not sure there _is_ an other than that,” he said, already hating how glib his voice would sound as he recited the story. “I’ve heard variations over the years, but the story is always the same in essentials. First year of uni. Lovely Lysa Tully was positively wild for me and I strung her along, refusing to go public with our relationship despite promising her all sorts of things. I begged and pleaded for her to go to a party one night, even though she had early morning classes, and when a mate of mine showed up I guilted her into going on a joyride. Late night, drinking, car crashes into a wall, one dead, one permanently injured, and the Golden Lion of Lannister walks away. I’d fucking hate me too.” 

He expected the same reaction the story always invoked, a neutral mask because he wasn’t in _jail_ and an undercurrent of revulsion because daddy’s money had probably saved him. 

Instead she nodded and looked him straight in the eye. 

“What’s the truth?”

“Pardon?”

“You said that’s the story. I can see at least…” she seemed to think for a moment, “at least three things that don’t make sense from the outside, which means I’m missing something important.” 

He laughed, a cold and bitter sound. Well, why the fuck not? He’d already told her about his family’s complete dysfunction this evening, and this wasn’t a secret, precisely—anybody looking at the police reports would have seen the truth. He’d just stopped believing it mattered.

“I barely knew Lysa,” he said. “Met her a couple of times. Usually at parties, ran into her once in a coffee shop. I sure as fuck wasn’t _mates_ with Petyr Baelish. I _presume_, from what I learnt afterwards, that she was telling Catelyn and the rest of her family that we were secretly dating to cover her relationship with Baelish.”

“They didn’t approve?”

“The man was a total creep, a grad student who had no business hanging out with a first year student. I hadn’t even seen her at the party that night, not until Petyr showed up. I had been knocking back tequila half the night—still can’t drink the stuff—and suddenly there was this _guy_ screaming at this girl in the middle of the room, and I was halfway to them to intervene before I even realised that it was Lysa Tully. It was just… not on, you know? Gods, that sound stupid. I was seventeen and...” 

He could feel his hands beneath the water, clenching and unclenching into fists, the injury from the day before tugging painful at every movement. He looked to Brienne, who was watching him with wary sympathy, and he had to tell her, had to make her see that he was not blameless by any stretch of the imagination. 

“I… I think maybe if I’d noticed sooner I could have gotten her away? It’s not like he could have taken me in a fair fight, but it was loud and I’d been drinking and…I hadn’t reached them yet when he grabbed her, by the arm, and there was this _look_ in his eyes, like he was going to hurt her and he was going to enjoy it, and he dragged her out of the party and into the car. She fought him the entire way. There was this scratch—” he gestured his own face “—just there, you could see the blood even in the streetlights. And I managed to throw myself into the backseat as he drove away, and…” 

He could feel it now, his chest tight as he remembered that night. In the moonlight, Brienne resembled a marble statue, solid as she waited for the rest of his story, unyielding but not cruel. 

“He was so _angry_ as he drove and I couldn’t fight him, but I thought maybe it would keep her safe at least, and then I realised he… he drove into that wall deliberately, and he fucking laughed when he did it.” 

In the silence that followed, Jaime could still hear the laughter and he wanted to puke, wanted to run, but was frozen in place. 

“Say something, then,” he barked.

“Can I touch you?”

“_What?_”

“Can I touch you?” she repeated, the impression of marble completely gone in favour of flesh and blood. “Because this is the moment where I would hug a friend, and I’m pretty sure that… that we’re friends, after that, but I don’t know if you… hug. Under the circumstances.”

His father would say that Lannisters do not hug, and they do not cry over things nearly twenty years in the past, but he was not his father and _actually_ a little bit of human compassion would go a long way right then. He nodded and she stepped closer, buoyed a little by the water, and embraced him. Her skin was wet and cold from the night air as he wrapped his arms around her in return, the sensation strangely clammy and disconcerting, but there was such a gentleness to it that he wanted to weep. 

“Why didn’t you tell anyone?” she asked after a moment, loosening her hold to step back, one hand still on his shoulder. There was no derision in her eyes, no judgment that he’d been too weak to fight against the rumours. 

“The cops know. Forensics backed it up. My father knows. But by the time I was able to _say_ anything, Baelish’s family had set about this alternate story and got the people from the party to agree, bribery or blackmail, I don’t know, and Lysa… I don’t know if she was covering for him or genuinely confused, back then, but she believes it now. The day I was released from the hospital, someone had scrawled ‘murderer’ on our front door.” 

The paint had been pink. It was the thing he remembered most from those first few weeks.

“It was just… Baelish was dead and Lysa’s entire life was destroyed, and I escaped that night with a couple of scars and a need to be the one driving if I don’t want to have a panic attack.” His lips tugged into a smile, as if his face had no idea what to do with the emotions that boiled in him. “If having someone to blame makes it easier…my therapist says its survivor’s guilt, and it probably is, but I’m not sure having a name for it makes it better. I’m glad Cat hasn’t forgiven me, because…” he choked on his words. _It’s easier to be the asshole than to look her in the eyes and tell her the truth._

Brienne’s hand slid down his arm, tangling with his fingers below the water.

“Come on,” she said, giving him the gentlest tug. “You’re coming back with me. I’ll handle Catelyn in the morning.”


	5. Friday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delay, real life conspired! The last few chapters should be posted in the next few days. They should be short, but I've said THAT before. And if it's not clear from context, Fuse bars are a chocolate bar that's been discontinued for years.

It was nearly 10 when Brienne woke the next morning, later than she could remember sleeping in years. On the daybed, Jaime was still asleep, the midmorning sun lighting his features. If this was a novel, he would look half a god and Brienne would be overwhelmed by a sudden tenderness; if there was any justice in the world, he would snore or have a small line of drool falling from the corner of his mouth. Neither was true: he was just Jaime. Even if he was wearing a borrowed pair of pyjama bottoms covered in penguins. 

Rolling out of bed, Brienne hurriedly pulled a brush through her short hair and grabbed a dressing gown. By the time they had reached the house the night before, they had been too exhausted by the hour and the conversation to pay much mind to the other changing, but it wasn’t an oversight she was eager to repeat. 

“Jaime,” she hissed, as loudly as she dared, and he stirred, looked up at her with hooded eyes. “I’m going to go find Catelyn, stay here until I…”

She gestured vaguely with her hands, and he chuckled.

“Raise my defense like a knight of old?”

“Yeah, they really weren’t as honourable as the stories suggest.”

“Should have known you’d be a cynic, HoneyBrie. It’s about the _stories_.”

She very briefly wondered whether she could just walk away and let him try to sneak out of the house like a disobedient teenager. Would serve him right.

Except, obviously, it wouldn’t at all, and so she had no real recourse.

“Just… stay here. Maybe put on clothes that don’t make you look like you’re five.”

“These are yours!” he said, then preened with an arrogance that was frankly _astonishing_, “And I happen to think I look smashing.”

“You would try the patience of a septa,” Brienne sighed, then slipped out the bedroom door without waiting for a reply.

Catelyn was in the kitchen, mobile held to her ear.

“Dammit, Ned, I don’t _care_ if Joffrey ‘got a better offer from the Tyrells and won’t be any more trouble’, he _hit_ Sansa. You need to put your foot down with Robert, because it was in one ear and out the other with Cersei. They are not welcome in our house until there are consequences,” she said, giving Brienne a small smile of acknowledgement. 

“Tea?” Brienned mouthed, and Catelyn nodded.

“Ned, I swear—no, I’m…” Catelyn pinched the bridge of her nose. “I know Robert is your best friend, _but a friend would fucking do something_.”

Brienne flicked the kettle on and began to make the tea, trying to ignore Catelyn’s increasingly angry words at her husband. Ned Stark was a good man who loved his family, but the blind spot he had when it came to Robert was astonishing. Anything short of murder would probably be excused. By the time the tea was steeped and a mug pushed across the island to a harried Catelyn, the woman had either gotten through to her husband or given up for the moment, and either way Brienne was not looking forward to the conversation to come.

“I need to talk to you,” she said, glancing over her shoulder to double check none of the kids were coming. “Jaime Lannister is upstairs right now—”

“You’re fucking kidding me,” she said. “You—I have one damn rule, Brienne. Don’t bring men home. And _him_? Do you—”

“No! Catelyn, I have _never _crossed that line, and I’m frankly offended that you’re presuming I would _sleep with Jaime Lannister in your house_ instead of letting me finish my sentence.”

“I hate him,” Catelyn hissed. 

“Yes, that’s abundantly clear. And he was very clear that you wouldn’t be happy that he was here, but I told him to come anyway. So let me speak, because you might be surprised.”

“Brienne…”

“Look, I ran into him last night. Two in the morning, no phone, no keys, and Cersei’d locked him out of the damn house because he was looking out for your daughter. Which, by the sounds of it, might be more than your husband is doing right now.” 

Catelyn looked at her, hard and evaluating, and Brienne met her gaze. She had done the right thing, and Catelyn could trust her or not, but she wasn’t going to regret it either way. 

After a moment, Catelyn sighed. “Joffrey’s not with the Tyrells, is he?”

“No,” Brienne said. “I didn’t ask for the specifics, but…no. And regardless of whatever happened with you two in the past—and I’m not asking you to share—I didn’t think you’d want me to leave him out there under the circumstances.”

“You’re vouching for him?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t like this.” Catelyn scrubbed at her face and sighed. “But I trust you. Which means that I guess I have to trust him, at least about this.”

“Thank you.”

***

Jaime had changed into the previous evening’s clothes when Brienne came back up.

“Am I slated for death by dragon fire?” he asked.

“I told you I’d deal with it. She says you’re welcome to have breakfast, then you can borrow my phone and call…whoever you need to call. I’ll go next door afterwards and collect your stuff, because it’s either me or the police and I’m sure Cersei will agree I’m the slightly more tolerable option.”

“Probably not, if you’ve taken my side,” Jaime replied. “But thank you.”

“You don’t need to thank me, Jaime.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Not for any of it?”

Brienne smiled. She had quite a nice smile, actually, with a softness and warmth in it that reached her eyes.

“Not for any of it,” she confirmed. 

Jaime had met good people before, people who were kind and helpful without expectation, who did the right thing simply because it was the right thing. Not _his_ family, admittedly, but he knew they existed. By his estimation, Brienne was rapidly rising up the ranks of the best of them. 

“Bacon butty?”

_Very_ rapidly, in fact. But before he could pledge his undying love for pork products, the doorbell rang and a moment later Catelyn’s voice came shouting up the stairs.

“Jaime! You have company!”

They hurried down—Cat shot him a look that was half loathing and half curiosity, but he didn’t have time to think about it because standing awkwardly at the door was Myrcella, backpack slung over one shoulder.

“Uncle Jaime!” 

And then his arms were filled by his niece, her face buried against his shoulder to hide, he knew, her tears, and nothing else mattered.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I managed to get some of your stuff, but mum—”

“Shh,” he said, pressing a kiss to her hair. “You’re not responsible for this, okay?” He looked up to Cat, hoping that whatever magic Brienne had worked on her would hold, and asked, “Is there somewhere…?”

Cat nodded towards a drawing room, and told them to join her and Brienne in the kitchen when they were done. Guiding Myrcella into the empty room, he encouraged her to take a seat—she gripped his hand firmly, refusing to let go, and Jaime wished there was some simple assurance he could give.

“I didn’t know you’d be here,” she said quietly as they settled on the sofa. “I hoped Brie or Catelyn would have some idea how to reach you. Mum’s so mad, I thought she’d…”

“None of this is your fault,” Jaime repeated. 

“She’s talking about moving schools.”

The younger two attended St Visenya’s, one of the most elite schools in London, and the gilded cage Jaime willingly remained in so he could keep an eye on them. He doubted Cersei would follow through on her threat—the school was one of the few times Tywin Lannister had taken Jaime’s side, and she would not risk running afoul of their father—but he couldn’t make promises.

“Myrc, your mother could take you to the furthest reaches of the Himalayas and I would find some way to look out for you, alright?” He wasn’t doing a particularly good _job_, it seemed, but he meant it. “Let the adults fight it out, you just enjoy your holiday.” 

The girl snorted, then wiped away an errant tear before leaning over to unzip her backpack. “I brought you some things. Phone. Wallet. A change of clothes. Couldn’t manage to get your keys though.”

“You didn’t need to get anything,” he said. The girl was _thirteen_, for fuck’s sake. Knowing how to build what was essentially a bug-out bag for the victims of her mercurial mother was not something she should be dealing with. 

Myrcella looked at his, hurt in her eyes. “I just thought…”

“Sweetie, I appreciate this. I really do. And I am _immensely_ glad to have my stuff. But I’m going to keep telling you: this isn’t your fight.” He pulled her close for another hug. “Do you want something to eat? Brienne said there were bacon butties.”

Myrcella sat upright and grinned. “I knew I liked her.”

***

By the time Jaime and Myrcella joined them in the kitchen, Brienne had cooked the bacon and Catelyn had gathered the troops for Operation Lannister-Baratheon. For the next two days, Tommen and Myrcella were to be treated as honorary Starks—Ned had gotten Robert to agree they could spend the night, the Stark kids had negotiated sleeping arrangements, and when Brienne went next door to collect Tommen and their clothes she could pick up Jaime’s stuff as well. Catelyn still wasn’t particularly _pleased_ with Jaime’s presence that morning, but once she set her mind on something she would achieve it, and she was determined to thwart Cersei Lannister-Baratheon. Anyone who could help her was a tentative ally. 

“Jaime can come to the beach with us,” she said. “We’ll drop him off at a hotel afterwards.”

Which was practically a signed peace treaty, coming from Catelyn. Brienne had given Jaime a small smile as he’d entered the kitchen just as she was leaving, and then went next door to collect Tommen.

Cersei met her at the door, a mimosa in hand. She gave Brienne a harsh once-over, then began to laugh. 

“I always thought Catelyn was a frigid bitch, but maybe she’s just a dyke. Can’t see why else she’d let some beast like you around her kids.”

Oh hurrah, not even the creative insults today. Brienne wondered if Cersei had genuinely forgotten who she was, the nanny dismissed as irrelevant in her mind, or whether she was just trying to be cruel. She didn’t particularly care either way. 

“I’m here to collect Jaime’s things,” Brienne said flatly. “Tommen as well. If you’re prepared to argue, I will demand a police escort. A detail that will be leaked to the press—not by me, but we know the way these things go—and your reputation will take another hit. Entirely up to you.”

Snorting, Cersei took a sip of her mimosa and regarded Brienne with cruel eyes; Brienne couldn’t imagine how she’d ever seen a similarity to Jaime’s. “You think to play this game against _me_?”

“There is no game. I’m here to collect Tommen, and Jaime’s things.”

Cersei began to laugh. “Ohhh, not a—oh, this is _delightful_. You like my brother. The beast wants the beauty.”

“I am here to collect Jaime’s things and Tommen,” Brienne repeated, stepping into the house. 

“By all means,” Cersei said. “This ought to be entertaining.”

She followed as Brienne quickly gathered what she could see of Jaime’s and a handful of things for Myrcella, her barbs only slowing when Tommen joined them. Then she kissed her son goodbye, making a production of the whole thing that he seemed unswayed by, and the two of them made their way back to the Starks’, bags in hand. 

Jaime and Myrcella were still in the kitchen. Tommen hugged his sister and Brienne took the chance to speak quietly to Jaime.

“I couldn’t find everything, but keys, laptop, clothes are all in the bag.”

“How was she?”

“Fine,” Brienne said. “She was too busy trying to insult me to realise that my threats to call the police were paper-thin at best, and she fussed over Tommen but let him come.”

“Why was she insulting _you_?” Jaime seemed genuinely surprised. And loud. 

“Because she always does,” piped up Myrcella from across the kitchen, and Brienne felt a flush spread across her cheeks. “She doesn’t like Brienne, and now that you two are friendly she’ll hate her even more. Why do you think Ms Hetherspoon took a different job?”

Jaime rolled his eyes. “Of course she…. I’m sorry, Brienne. When we were kids she would hate any friend of mine that wasn’t hers first, but I thought she’d grown out of that. Thank you, for the bag.”

“Anytime,” Brienne said, giving him a small smile. “That’s what friends are for.”

***

Brienne had managed to gather quite a bit of his stuff, but that did not include his swim shorts. His first stop when he drove down to town was the Sports Direct near the beach to buy a replacement—a hideous red pair with the Team GB lion logo taking up most of the left leg. When he arrived at the beach, Brienne took one look at him and began to laugh.

“It’s not that bad,” he pouted, sprawling on the blanket beside her.

“It’s really not,” she said, “but your _face_! What are you going to be like when you discover what a day at the seaside means to a Stark?”

It turned out that a day at the seaside with the Starks meant swimming, a strangely detailed sandcastle that turned out to be a replica of Winterfell Hall, Arya nearly escaping during a donkey ride, fish and chips that were divebombed by seagulls, and a trip into the seaside arcade that looked like it hadn’t been _cleaned_ in twenty years or redecorated in forty. 

“Don’t touch anything unless you’re sure it’s clean,” Brienne whispered to him. “And do _not_ eat any candy from the games. I’m pretty sure I saw a Fuse bar in one once.” 

They’d won matching stuffed bears from a crane machine there, quickly handed off to willing kids. Just when Jaime thought he’d escaped with nothing more than a bone-deep exhaustion, Myrcella and Sansa dragged him to the palm reader’s hut on the beachfront, which was exactly as insightful as Jaime would have predicted but did leave Myrcella in stitches. 

“Mum _hates_ her,” she confessed as they left. “Dad says she went once and was told she’d be replaced as a trophy wife by the time she was forty.” 

“Very mystical,” Jaime said dryly.

The setting sun had painted the sky a vivid pink when everyone was ready to go home, and as they were ferrying the obscene amount of accumulated _stuff_ to the Starks’ people carrier, Catelyn caught Jaime’s arm.

“Come have dinner, you can stay with us tonight,” she said quietly. 

He looked towards the kids, happily chatting to the Starks.

“I don’t—”

“Tommen and Myrcella are going to feel better with you there. That has to take priority.”

“Thank you,” Jaime said, taken aback by the offer. “Truly.” 

Catelyn nodded curtly. “Just don’t make me regret it, Jaime Lannister.”


	6. Saturday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Late, late, but both this chapter and the next are near posting. Which means I can get back to _in the wild blue yonder_ soon, and start the next fic in this universe as well. 
> 
> For those curious, Sothling Fort is based heavily on Nothe Fort in Weymouth. I have never had to pull a child from a munitions lift, but I'm expecting to one of these years. There are definitely mice figurines hidden around the fort, some in costume. And if the idea of a cannonball dating from the Civil War still being in a wall seems unlikely, [I didn't make it up](https://dorsetcountymuseum.wordpress.com/tag/cannonball/).

Jaime was going to kill his brother. He’d dump the little bastard into the ocean, or let him drown in his own wine, or—

“What’s going on?”

Across the room, Brienne had sat up, her eyes blurry and her hair in disarray. A rather perfect opportunity to poke at her, except it was 5:30 in the fucking morning and she was awake because his _absolute idiot of a brother_ had found a way to get around Jaime’s Do Not Disturb setting and was texting up a storm. As if on cue, the phone pinged with another message.

> _V. tempted to break open champagne. Ding dong and all that_

“Nothing,” Jaime said, typing _Stick with what you’re already drinking, save yourself the hangover_. “Sorry. Just a…”

“Work thing?”

“No, my brother. He’s heard about Cersei and thought I’d appreciate a play-by-play of his celebrations. They’re not close.” He paused, her words finally hitting him. “What do you think I _do_?”

It was her turn to pause, and she wiped some sleep from her eye. “Uh, family business? I mean, I guess you never said, but...”

Jaime began to laugh. 

“I don’t see what’s funny!”

“No, not—while I’m sure my father would be more than delighted for me to take my rightful place as heir to the Lannister empire, I flipped him the bird years ago on that front. I just realised I never mentioned… I’m a teacher. SEN co-ordinator at St Visenya’s in London, actually.”

“Oh,” Brienne said. “That’s—” all sleep fell from her and she half-scrambled out of bed and lurched towards a pile of books. “_No_. Shit, shit, shit, you’re _that_ Lannister. You literally—” she grabbed a specific book and flipped it to a page near the front and then groaned. “You literally wrote _the _book on inclusion in classrooms.”

“Co-wrote,” Jaime corrected. “And I think Arthur just wanted another name on it.”

“Bullshit. I mean, some of your information is outdated now, it’s fifteen years old, but…” she looked up at him. “You couldn’t have been more than twenty when you wrote this.”

“Twenty-two,” Jaime said, trying not to laugh. The woman looked wild-eyed. “Are you alright?” 

“Fine, yes, absolutely dandy,” she replied, sounding strangled. “Sorry, I’m—” she started to laugh. “Sorry, uhh, your book….”

“Breathe, HoneyBrie,” he instructed, wondering whether he’d slipped into an alternate reality overnight; she scowled at him though, so clearly not. 

“I read the book when it came out. A lot. It was a major component of my dissertation. But it was also… gods, this is actually embarrassing. My first year at uni was…not easy. I considered transferring a few times, but _this book_ would remind me why I wanted to…”

Her face had gone straight past blushing and into purple territory, and this really would not be half as fun if she had a stroke in the middle of things. 

Jaime gave her his cockiest grin. “Would it helped if I signed it?”

She threw it at him, bouncing the well-read text off his shoulder and smiling, some of the tension gone from her posture. Jaime immediately picked up the book and made as if he was searching for a pen.

“How shall I make it out? HoneyBrie? My greatest admirer?”

“I hate you.”

“I’m not sure I believe you,” he laughed, handing the book over. “If it helps your embarrassment any, you’ll notice I haven’t published anything since.”

He’d been ambitious in those days, but then he’d been distracted and…with a strange pang, he realised it had been a long time since he’d been the kid who thought he could shape the education of an entire generation. He wouldn’t change his career path, if only for the sake of the Tommen and Myrcella, but teaching at a school full of privileged children where anyone with a serious SEN need would be gently encouraged by the administration to look elsewhere was _not_ what he’d set out to do.

His phone pinged again, and he picked it up and flashed it at Brienne.

“I’ll just go…take this elsewhere,” he said, suddenly craving some distance. “Sorry about waking you up.”

***

Sothling Fort had been Catelyn’s idea, an “educational visit” to round the holiday off, which was a study in optimism Brienne hadn’t thought her employer was capable of. And it was an optimism that was most definitely misplaced. The younger kids were assigned the task of finding every mouse figurine hidden amongst the exhibits, which resulted in them bolting in various directions the moment they were through the door, Arya shouting something about finding the little plague-bearers. 

“Regretting it yet?” Brienne murmured to Jaime, who was looking more than a little stunned. Somehow she didn’t think excursions with the Lannister-Baratheons ever went quite this way, nor with the darling students paying upwards of twenty thousand pounds a year for their education at St Visenya’s. 

“I…don’t think I’ve ever seen Tommen move that fast,” he said. “He usually…”

“The Starks will look out for him,” Brienne said, glancing over her shoulder to where Catelyn was talking to Sansa and Myrcella and giving the woman a small gesture. “Catelyn’s got the girls, we should split up and gather the wildlings. Probably take them through together, because all seven hells will break loose if Arya and Bran come to different numbers on the mouse hunt. Unless you want to just take Tommen, I won’t—”

“If you think I’m going through this entire fort with only Ser They-Ought-To-Get-Cats-In-For-These-Mice for company, HoneyBrie, you’re more naive than I thought. You go left and I go right?”

It only took Brienne ten minutes to grab Arya and Bran—Arya had somehow found a small room with weaponry through the centuries, and Bran had managed to shimmy up a munitions lift that probably should have been inaccessible, and _honestly_ they’d been so well-behaved the entire week she should have predicted this—and make her way back to the entrance. Jaime was leaning against the wall, flanked by an obedient Rickon and Tommen, and looking ridiculously smug.

“Trouble?” he asked, and she briefly wondered why she’d ever stopped wanting to punch him in the face. Insufferable pain in the ass. 

But then Rickon grinned. “Mr Lannister had to crawl under the door in the bathroom to get me. I couldn’t unlock it.”

A rueful shrug and smile confirmed the story, and Brienne tried not to laugh as she pulled hand sanitiser from her pocket. There were times when soap would not suffice. He took it with an expression of gratitude, and Brienne clapped her hands twice and fixed her charges with a firm eye.

“Have we got that nonsense out of our systems? Because I am ashamed of the behaviour from all of you, and the next time you so much as _think_ about acting like heathens I will march you out of this fort and you will sit in the van until it is time to leave.”

“But Brie—”

“There is literally no way that sentence can end well, Arya, so think carefully before continuing.” 

“I was just excited to learn?” 

Brienne had to give the girl credit; she was willing to try. “_Not_ convincing,” she said. “Now move.”

The kids quickly fell into a line as they headed towards the first open room, and Brienne glanced at Jaime, who was watching her with an expression she couldn’t quite identify. “Sorry for catching Tommen up in that.”

“No, no, that was…_impressive_. I can see why the kids like you so much.” 

Brienne felt a blush creep up her cheeks, which was ridiculous. She _knew_ the kids liked her, and she knew he meant Tommen and Myrcella and not the Starks, and that was different in some ways, but it was still ridiculous to blush over it. Apparently someone else knowing she was competent at her job was a matter of embarrassment. Or perhaps it was being praised for that in particular. 

“It’s…that was probably not my best moment.”

“Believe me, HoneyBrie, I was subjected to more than a few lectures from my father and nannies alike, and none of them managed to invoke a reaction like _that_.”

“Sound like shitty nannies then,” she replied, immediately wishing she could pull the words back. But Jaime just laughed and shook his head, and trailed off after the kids. 

***

There was a corridor deep in the bowels of the fort, carefully marked off by heavy fire doors at either end and lit only by red safety lights at the maximum distance legally allowed. A plaque near the entrance declared it the ghost tunnel, a designation that made Brienne scoff.

“Not a believer?” Jaime asked as the kids debated whether or not to brave it. 

“No.”

Her expression was completely flat, and that was not at _all_ entertaining.

“You know, it’s quite a tragic story,” Jaime said, invoking as much eeriness into his voice as possible. “They call her the ghost of Lady Stoneheart, and the tunnel is one of two places she’s said to haunt. The other…they don’t allow people to go to the other.”

“Probably for health and safety reasons,” Brienne countered, then sighed. “You’re going to tell me this entire thing, aren’t you?”

“Not if you’re too scared?”

“Are you a _child_?” she spat, then flinched. “That was unkind, I’m sorry.”

He raised his hands in a sign of surrender and took a step back. “Look, if you don’t want to know…I was just trying to be friendly, and it’s an interesting story. Don’t worry about it.”

“It’s not you,” she said, shaking her head. “There was a whole…thing, when I was a kid. Scary story on a school trip, stupid jump scare, I punched instead of running, ergo I was the one that got lectured. Not been a fan since.”

“I’ll leave it then,” Jaime said, and because he could never _truly _leave well enough alone, added, “But if we go in, you have to promise to protect me.”

Brienne pinched the bridge of her nose and breathed deeply, and for a moment Jaime had the feeling he’d gone too far. But then the corners of her mouth ticked up, just a tiny bit, and she shook her head.

“If I’m to play defender, you might as well tell me what I’m defending you against. You’re pretty insufferable. You never know, I might take her side.”

“Never!” he declared dramatically. The kids were still arguing—Arya and, surprisingly, Tommen in favour; Bran swearing he already saw enough ghosts; and Rickon bored half out of his skull—so Jaime went on. “The story is that during the Civil War, the local people all fled to Sothling Fort during a particularly fierce battle. There’s a house in town that still has a cannonball, said to date to this same time, embedded in its wall. 

“One of the residents who fled was a widow and her children. Her eldest had fallen in the early moments of the battle, and her others were too young to fight. The boys, it’s said, were killed when soldiers breached the fort’s walls, and the girls were lost amongst the chaos. The woman took up arms and threw herself into the battle, her heart as cold as stone as she slayed those she held responsible, and when she fell herself, her throat slit, her spirit remained.” He nodded towards the door. “It’s said there are cold drafts in the tunnel, and a rattling sound that is Lady Stoneheart’s breath as she searches for her lost daughters. The other—” Jaime lowered his voice and leant in. “The other place she’s said to haunt is blocked off to the public, because more than once pieces of masonry have fallen, missing women and children and striking men.”

“Men are statistically taller. That seems a much more plausible reason for them to be hit before the others,” she pointed out. 

He grinned. “I did say I needed your protection.” 

Brienne rolled her eyes. “Right then,” she declared, pulling open the heavy door, “anybody for the tunnel, follow me. Otherwise we’ll meet you on the other side.”

The kids went after her, their faces bright with anticipation, and Jaime followed them into the dark, his eyes peeled for falling masonry. Just in case. 


	7. Sunday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, here we are at the end of all things. Or, really, just the end of the beginning, because there's a lot more to come in this universe. 
> 
> An immense thanks to bethanyactually for betaing this story, and to the folks running JB Week without whom I wouldn't have had the push to start this series (and there is, hidden in each chapter, an oblique reference to the themes of the day), and to all you marvelous readers and commenters who found this world as fun to visit as I have. ♥

With the flight back to Edinburgh at noon, Brienne was out of bed well before six on Sunday morning and desperately mainlining coffee in the kitchen before the kids woke up. Catelyn came in during her second cup, giving Brienne a small smile and joining her at the table. 

“I owe you an apology,” she said, her fingers tapping nervously on her own mug. “I…jumped to conclusions when you said Jaime was here and I should have known better. You’d never endanger the kids, I know that, I just…”

“You have a history.”

Catelyn gave a pained smile. “To say the least. And I…I know you’re an adult, but you’re family too, and I just—be careful with him, okay? I don’t want to see _you _hurt either.”

Brienne furrowed her brow and stared at her coffee for a long moment. Catelyn couldn’t think he would—

Oh.

Brienne began to laugh despite the solemnity hanging over the quiet kitchen. “I like Jaime. It’s been nice to have him around this week, but I barely know him and we live hundreds of miles apart. The chances of us ever crossing paths again are incredibly small. There’s really no danger of that, I promise you.”

“He’s a very attractive man. You wouldn’t be the first person taken in by a pretty face,” Catelyn pointed out gently. Almost motherly. 

Brienne, for her part, had progressed to full-on snorting. “He’s very pretty to look at, but so’s a Rembrandt. Not to put too fine a point on it, but neither one of them is getting into my knickers. I expect that we will, at most, exchange a couple of vague pleasantries on social media and forget the other existed by September.”

An assertion that was, perhaps, overselling the point a little. Brienne had enjoyed their time together, and if circumstances were different would happily continue the burgeoning friendship, but she was a realist. She was not particularly good at maintaining relationships, they were both busy people, and the distance between London and Edinburgh would only make it more difficult. It seemed to appease Catelyn though, because she smiled.

“Do you want something to eat?” she asked. “I think I saved some bacon and eggs.” 

***

The Starks were loading the people carrier with luggage when Jaime saw them, and he quickly jogged across the garden to where Brienne was hoisting a huge bag into the back.

“You’re not going without a goodbye, are you?” he teased.

“No. The kids were going to head over to say goodbye to Tommen and Myrcella once we were all loaded up. Though I suspect Sansa and Myrcella will text the entire way to the airport.”

“I meant _you_,” he said.

She blinked twice, as if surprised. “Oh, I mean, I guess not? That would be rude.”

He pretended to huff—well, mostly pretended, there was a little more sincerity in it than he cared to admit—as he pulled his phone from his pocket and swiped to contacts. “What would I do if Lady Stoneheart decided to throw rocks at me without you around to for protection?”

“Throw them back?”

“Nope, I was horribly maimed, remember?” He held up his bandaged hand, then offered up the phone with his other. “I’ll need your number, just in case.”

She took it, rolling her eyes but typing something in. Then her lips twitched, just a little, and she seemed to delete and reenter something. She’d probably managed a typo in ‘Brienne Tarth, Nanny to the Starks’ that couldn’t be borne. Then she handed the phone back.

“We’re already running late,” she said apologetically, glancing back towards the house. “But it really was nice to meet you, Jaime.”

“You too,” he said, and held out a hand to offer a handshake. Her palm was warm and calloused and her grip was strong, much like the woman herself. “You really did help this week,” he said, moving into sincerity for a moment. “So thank you.”

She smiled. “Saying it was a pleasure seems a tad inappropriate, but I’m glad I could help.”

“I’ll…text you,” he said awkwardly. “So you have my number, I mean.”

“Sure. Maybe we’ll talk later. I should send you that picture of Tommen at the fort, so…”

Gods, this was excruciating. All of Jaime’s friends were either people he’d known for decades or people he worked with, neither of which required serious effort to keep in touch with. 

“I’ll let you get back to…” He gestured towards the bags already loaded. 

“Yeah.”

A couple of awkward goodbyes later and Jaime headed back to the other house. Cersei and Robert were too busy arguing to pay any attention to the kids, who were watching the telly until it was time to leave. Taking a seat on the sofa, Jaime pulled his phone from his pocket and went digging into his email contacts, finding an address he hadn’t had reason to use in years, and quickly typed a short message. 

The reply took a couple of hours to come back, long after he’d set off back home to London, but it contained exactly what he was hoping to hear. Stopping at a service station for petrol and a drink, he searched for Brienne’s number to send her a text. Not under B, not under T—he scrolled through the short list, wondering if she’d only pretended to put her details in, which would be truly embarrassing, when he saw it and started to laugh. 

She’d put her number under HoneyBrie. 

***

Brienne turned her phone back on when the flight landed, quickly checking for messages. A few emails, all junk, and a handful of texts. A couple were from her father, telling her to fly safe and then a reminder it was her great uncle’s birthday the following week. One was from the Mormont’s nanny, trying to arrange a date for Arya to spend the night. And, to her surprise, one was from Jaime.

> _Hey HoneyBrie, I’m in Edinburgh over Oct half term, we should grab coffee. If you’re free? _

She read the text twice, subconsciously searching for the joke hidden within and not finding it, and shrugged to herself. 

> _Sure. Let me know details closer to the time_.

It would probably come to nothing, she knew—not out of malice but because there were any number of reasons it might not—but there was no harm in trying. Tucking her phone away and determined not to worry about it for now, she disembarked the plane. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A wee bit of a peek into the next installment of this series, which is known as _October Halfterm In Scotland: Platonic Boners Ahoy!_ Somehow I don't think the title will stick. 😂
>
>> When Brienne had left Dusken-Regis, she had found a certain humour in the fact that her whirlwind summer tale had been one of _friendship_. She was quite sure that such a thing would have sent her teenaged self into a maddening pit of despair, certain that she would never find love, but as an adult she was more than happy that her potentially boring week on the English coast had been so well diverted. And when it had come to an end, she had exchanged numbers and expected nothing to come of it.  
Jaime Lannister, it seemed, had other plans.


End file.
